Did the Van Andel Institute Find A Switch to Turn On the Body's Cancer Fighting Powers? @VAInstitute. Hear About the Playbook.
VAI Has Worked A Long Time to Understand Parkinson's Disease and Rare Diseases
Monday, April 17th, 2023 at 9:04 AM
Conant Gardens Neighborhood
Detroit, Michigan
The Van Andel Institute showed up on my Facebook timeline. Through Facebook connection magic, the institute has invited me to attend The Epigenetic Playbook Of Cancer: Mechanisms And Therapeutic Opportunities. Click that link to learn about the lecture. I have accepted although I probably will have to run the entire transcript through Monica, an AI that explains matters to me now.
I understand the word cancer, my illness. I understand the word mechanisms because I usually can follow a chain of cause and effect. The chains of cause and effect in biology can be surprisingly long. I’ll stare at them long enough until the ideas pop.
And I’m all about learning about therapeutic opportunities. The right therapy means cure. Cure means survival. And I expect to hear about therapies that go beyond the “standard of care”, 5FU chemotherapy and radiation. As I was taught to seek at Michigan State, look for the Zeitgeist. Does the cure for cancer await on top of Belknap Hill? I know that’s close to Graydon’s Crossing, a restaurant with a delicious Scotch Egg on the menu.
Lately, I’ve found myself curious about chemo and radiation. One can think of this as the ultimate rite of passage. How badly will I feel after a shakedown week of chemo and five days in the radiologist spa? I’ll need something to talk about with Captain Towar and Nan. I saw my elementary math teacher, Larry Judson, in a picture ringing the end of treatment brass bell. He explored the entire Upper Peninsula while in treatment at the Mayo Clinic. The lodges made Judson most welcome as one of the leading masons of the Michigan lodge.
Monica provided me with the following definition of epigenetics. Epigenetics refers to the study of changes in gene expression without any alteration in the DNA sequence itself. A gene can’t do its job fighting cancer if its expression is suppressed by an environmental factor. Free up a tumor suppressor gene, and cancer cells die. As a layman, a cancer hobbyist, I tend to oversimplify. Yet, I like the sound of that idea.
I asked Monica how long has 5FU chemo and radiation been the standard of care for the cancer I have? In head and neck cancer, the combination of 5FU and radiation therapy has been used as a standard treatment since the 1980s.
What technology in a competitive market has remained dominant since the years we called the town Bland Rapids? That’s more than four decades ago. It’s GRap now. I just checked the population increase since 1980. Grand Rapidity is up twenty-thousand citizens. Change is constant. So when a technology doesn’t change, one must ask why?
Van Andel Institute has conducted biological research unfettered by funding concerns for over a quarter century. The institute serves as a keystone of the Billion Dollar Miracle Mile of Medicine. A good portion of that billion dollars came from the treasury of the Amway families. I’ve driven by the signature building designed by Rafael Viñoly Architects numerous times, usually while driving Uber on a weekend. Driving Uber took me to all the fun in GR, and Summer 2017 was a lot of fun.
The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research funds research at VAI. And the Fox Foundation happily has announced that a Parkinson’s Disease biomarker has been documented. Can that biomarker be flexed by epigenetics? It sounds good, but do I know what that means? How much of the research work took place at VAI? An early test announced to the press might detect Parkinson’s Disease before the onset of symptoms, a flex in itself. What does the institute know about cancer now that the treatment paradigms are shifting?
It helps to learn more about the speaker, Dr. Scott Rothbart, a researcher leading a laboratory focusing on epigenetics. Supported by the American Cancer Society, Rothbart has tested epigenetic possibilities, discovering switches. Reading about the day by day, grant by grant progress has curbed my earlier enthusiasm a smidge. There’s probably more funding available for this focused research than there are professionals prepared to conduct it. Rothbart’s lab will influence generations, so there’s just a glimmer of light of dawn to see from the top of Belknap Hill. Look southeast toward the heart of the city. You’ll see it.
